Rise of the Fire
by ponsi
Summary: On his 10th birthday Naruto has enough of it. Watch as he strives to become the greatest ninja ever, during the most troubled time the world has ever seen.


Birthday

The sun started to rise above Konoha. All the streets were empty at this hour of course. Although a locally famous ramen-seller knew that it wouldn't be long before his little shop would be to small for the people that were about to come in a few hours. After all, this was the 10th of October and all of Konoha would celebrate the so called death of the Kyuubi 10 years ago.

"Ayame, why aren't you awake yet, you know what day it is, get out of bed, we have to prepare noodles!".

"But it's six in the mourning!" the young voice of the girl protested.

"Yeah, but if we are at the normal hour in the shop we'll have to work much harder to keep up with the orders.".

"I suppose that makes sense, ok father, I'll be downstairs in fifteen minutes".

"Try to make it ten okay?" he shouted towards a door a floor higher that where he stood. He could still here something that sounded like 'whatever' but he didn't give his daughters response much attention.

He was thinking about his number one customer, who as always wouldn't come this day. _"I can't imagine how much his birthday must suck every year, why can't the people see behind that damn fox?"_ The old man hoped that the villagers would forget about Naruto this day, but deep inside of him he knew that that wouldn't be the case. _"I hope that you have some sort of plan to get you trough this day Naruto."_

An hour later on the other side of Konoha.

"Good morning Konoha!" Naruto yelled. He got out of bed, went straight to the fridge to get some milk and than sat himself behind a table where a box with within it rather large cookies was already present. _"Darn, I forgot a glass"_ he thought as he went to the kitchen. He got himself a glass and as he went back to the table. He suddenly sneezed so hard that he almost dropped the glass on the floor. _"I guess they didn't forget it was my birthday"_ he thought sadly. He quickly ate the cookies and drank his milk. After putting the glass on the sink he changed his pyjamas for a bright orange jumpsuit_. "Hehe, if they think they'll catch me this year they'll be surprised, one year in the academy should have defiantly improved my running skills"_.

Than he moved out of his small apartment, knowing that if he stayed there he would just be ambushed. The first couple of hours there wasn't a problem. It was still early but as the day moved onwards more and more people started to come out for the planned festivities.

And that he heard it: "Demon!", "Monster", "I hope they kill you in your sleep" and similar phrases alike. Now this was something Naruto could handle now, tough it didn't mean he liked it. In fact the words still got to him very much because he didn't knew why he was called such things, he couldn't remember doing anything wrong to people in the past, but it was that this day he was just so afraid of physical assaults in stead of verbal. He tried to stay away as much of great groups of people, but when it was noon it was no longer possible and the first gang came after him. But this year Naruto had the advantage. Due to his training no villager was able to follow him. Naruto thought he was finally safe on his birthday, but than it happened.

He was in an alley, hiding, and suddenly four people appeared, two in front of him and two behind him, effectively surrounding him. _"Shit where did they come from?"_ Naruto thought _"I never saw anybody following me, how is this possible?" _and then he suddenly got it. These men were no villagers. No villager was allowed to wear such cloths, only ninja beginning from the chuunin rank He immediately knew this was a battle he couldn't win.

"We heard you became quite the runner, demon" On of the two in front of him said while emphasising the last word. He was clearly the leader of the four.

"How fortunate for us, this means actual ninja can punish you for the crimes you committed in stead of simple villagers." he said while the other three smirked, knowing what was about to come.

"What crimes?", Naruto yelled, "I never did anything to anybody!".

"Stop lying, demon, or perhaps we will actually kill you instead of torturing you!".

"Then what crimes have I committed, tell me please, so I can ask for forgiveness." Naruto pleaded.

"Unfortunately for you demon, saying what your crime's are will get me killed, but be sure of this, your crimes are unforgivable!" the chuunin said in a harsh tone. "But lucky for us nobody has to know what will happen here and know" he heard the man say, while he was giving a sign to his three minors. A second later everything went black.

"He's coming by". "Good, hopefully he can say who did this to him". The first man hoped the concussion his patient had suffered would prevent him from doing just that, in his mind it served the boy just right. _"To bad I have an oath to follow, now I had to actually help the demon-boy."_

Naruto opened his eyes. He was staring at a white sealing and immediately knew where he was. _"Stupid hospital."_ he thought.

He heard a voice saying on his left "Well, he's all yours, I'll be checking him in half an hour though.". Then he heard footsteps that were quieting with every step.

"Naruto?". Naruto turned his head to his right to see a tall man with a bandana on his head.

"Yes?" Naruto replied.

"Do you know where you are?".

"Konoha Hospital, it's kinda obvious with everything being white" the blond boy said.

"It is, isn't it?" the man chuckled. "Well, since I know your name it's only polite you know mine. I'm Morino Ibiki, and I'm going to ask you some questions about what happened earlier today". Naruto only nodded towards the man. "How many men were there, and could describe them?".

"There were four, but I only paid attention to one since he was talking to me. What I can say is that they must have been ninja because they wore chuunin vest and because that one man said for himself that they were ninja".

"_Oh I so hope I can interrogate them, doing this to a kid and for what, something he doesn't even know of!"_ Ibiki thought. "Then what did that one man look like?" Ibiki asked hoping it would give him a clue.

"He was a bit taller than the rest and had dark hair" Naruto said.

"Do you still know if he had some unusual features? I mean something like white or red eyes, a clan symbol perhaps?".

"Sorry, I didn't see anything of that". Naruto couldn't help but feel disappointed that he couldn't help the man, nor himself.

"Perhaps something about his voice? Was it high, or really low?". Ibiki didn't like where this was going.

"I'm afraid that his voice wasn't special either" Naruto told Ibiki.

At this point Ibiki knew it was almost impossible to arrest somebody for questioning, since the descriptions Naruto gave him were just to general. He mentally cursed and started to ask more questions on which Naruto was never able to answer.

The 30 minutes were over and the nurse came back to check on Naruto. When he checked the data collected in the last half hour his eyed widened.

"Uzumaki-san, try to walk please.". Naruto did so without an effort.

"Well, it's official know, your already healed enough, so you can sleep at home this evening. "Your cloths are over there." The man said while pointing to a chair where his jumpsuit, completely covered in blood, laid.

"Well, I'll get going now" Ibiki said. "I have to report" and he vanished, leaving a puff of smoke.

Naruto put his cloths on and went to his apartment

As he moved out of the hospital, he noticed it was already dark and the streets were deserted, safe the occasional drunk guy.

"_Ah, at least now I'm safe for another year__."_ Naruto thought.

He got at his apartment, opened the door and reached for the light swish. The placed got illuminated and what Naruto then saw was the last drop for him. His apartment was completely destroyed. The fridge was on the floor, his bed was no more, his windows smashed to pieces and everything else that could be broken lay in tiny pieces on the floor.

"_Never again will this happen to me!"_ Naruto shouted inwardly. _"Starting tomorrow, I'll train harder then ever and I'll show those bastards what it means to be a ninja!" _ and he started to clean his apartment.


End file.
